In a communication system, individual A may desire to grant individual B the right to send messages to individual A. Individual B might likewise desire to give individual A rights to send messages to individual B. When these messages are received, it may be further desirable that the messages be processed according to a set of predefined actions, which predefined actions may, under various embodiments, be specific to the given sender, the given message, and/or the given message type.
A scheme for managing such message control is outlined in application Ser. No. 10/382,042 entitled “Communication Management Using a Token Action Log,” which was subsequently expanded in co-pending application Ser. No. 10/443,293 entitled “File System Management with User-Definable Functional Attributes Stored in a Token Action Log,” now U.S. Pat. No. 6,804,687. This document extends these prior two by providing methods for efficiently exchanging Tokens between individuals, organizations, and/or other entities.
Those prior applications describe a system in which, in one embodiment, entity A has a message device that contains a Token Action Log (TAL). The TAL is a data structure in which tokens are recorded along with corresponding actions that are to occur in conjunction with specific system events involving specific tokens. Tokens are defined as arbitrary or systematic symbols that have meaning according to specifications recorded in the TAL.
For example, a random-symbol token “142etn” might be created by the communication device belonging to individual A. The TAL entry for that token (stored in individual A's communication device) might indicate that when a message is received containing that token, the message is to be displayed in a bold-green font and flagged as “important.” Individual A may issue that token to individual B, which is to say that individual A instructs his or her communication device to send the token to individual B's communication device, so that individual B may include that token in subsequent messages sent to individual A. Individual B is therefore a “user” of the token issued by individual A. Individual A is the “issuer” of the token.
The potential purposes of such token exchange are many. Token exchange can be used to avoid unsolicited messages (so-called “spam”), since incoming messages with valid tokens might be accepted and arriving messages without a valid token might be challenged and/or rejected. The token exchange might assist the token issuer in classifying and/or organizing incoming communication—TAL entries can specify the nature of communication coming from users of the given token. Further, token users might be given the opportunity to indicate the nature of incoming messages, by selecting different issued tokens for different purposes, or by annotating tokens with specific purposes.